author
Ralph Sloan
A little-known pulp-era science fiction writer, remembered today for a tense space adventure that first appeared in Planet Stories in 1949. Very little biographical information seems to have survived, which gives the work an extra air of mystery.
1 Audiobook
Ordeal in Space
by Ralph Sloan
About the author
Ralph Sloan is an obscure science fiction author associated with the pulp-magazine era. The clearest confirmed record is "Ordeal in Space," a short story published in Planet Stories (Fall 1949), later preserved by Project Gutenberg.
Available catalog records suggest that this is the only work currently listed for Sloan in major freely accessible sources such as Project Gutenberg. Because reliable biographical details are scarce, it is hard to say much with confidence about Sloan's life, career, or background beyond that single published story.
That rarity is part of the appeal. Sloan's surviving work comes from a lively moment in mid-century magazine science fiction, when fast-moving plots, moral tension, and space-bound danger were at the heart of the genre.